January 27, 2005

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This movie was very cool looking in an old adventure serial style and was a pretty fun action movie too. However, some little things quite annnoyed me as the heros are spending time chitchatting on multiple occasions while they have less than 10 minutes to try to save the world. I also was a little surprised at the ending. I thought Jude and Gwynneth were going to save the earth but be stranded on the rocket and go off to colonize a new world of beautiful kids, with the ark animals. ***1/2

January 25, 2005

Movies: Silver City

Excellent movie involving the crossovers of politics and business and how much you can get away with if you have the right connections. Danny Huston is amazingly good in this movie. Well worth getting. ****1/2

January 21, 2005

Mystery Hunt Notes

The team solving stats have now been posted and we were 3rd on this as well as on the overall hunt. Looking at solutions for a few of the puzzles we missed found that Joe had been on the right track with Ginormous but had trouble doing the second factoring step so I think must have had an error in his number somehow. Still, pretty tricky puzzle with three levels of factoring and a different trick at each stage for pulling out the info you wanted and no midway for-sure confirmations you were on the right track. Last year had a bunch of (imho bad) puzzles like this but this year had almost none.

Little People, OTOH, had a very reasonable solution and I can't believe we didn't get it, particularly given the obviousness of the flowers in the first image and the all green guys box. We worked on this puzzle quite a lot and its amazing to me that nobody figured it out - it just doesn't seem that tricky. It may have made a big difference that for a bunch of the time, people were looking at B&W prints so the all-green guys box doesn't leap out as much, and in general the characters don't seem as distinctive. I think we need to make a point of printing more puzzles in color to at least have one easily available color copy. Certainly the 'find the location of this photo on campus' puzzles are really helped by having good color prints.

I am not at all surprised that very few teams solved Square Mess. I personally think having a non-dictionary word in the solution makes this an unfairly difficult puzzle and I'm glad I didn't try to code it as at least three people on our team did without success. The basic search space is 19! and you have to limit it and dictionary search is the only reasonable way to do so. The solution talks about getting the start of the message using dictionary search and then working from there but I think this is pretty unreasonable. There are just too many possible starts to pick out the right one (even with the correct guess I made very early that the message would start "find "). We also guessed the exact answer to the puzzle based on backsolving so really no great need to solve this one.

Movies: 42 Up

I finally watched the latest in Michael Apted's brilliant Up Series and it continues to be fascinating. Not surprisingly, there isn't nearly as much change between 35 and 42 as there was between 7 and 14 but it was nice to see the improvements in Bruce and Neil's lives and the friendship they had developed.

It really would be great if a series like this existed for other countries, given the significant impact the cultural background has on the people. In the US, I wonder if the class restraints would have been as strong and hope not.

January 18, 2005

MIT Mystery Hunt 2005

Thanks to Setec Astronomy who did a great job with this year's hunt, puzzles with linked solutions available here. The puzzles were almost uniformly clean and excellent, sometimes even a bit too excellent where the answer was so linked to the puzzle that it was guessable without solving the puzzle. Our team ended up third but easily could have won if we could have solved the final two super-metas more quickly, although I guess Acronym was stuck for even longer and lost their sizable lead and the hunt for it. The Purple meta wasn't even that tricky and I think only sleep deprivation explains why it took us so long. The Orange meta was a bit of different story, but we still should have solved it. View Source should be a standard thing to do when stuck and would have worked in all browsers. Interestingly, without that, Firefox on the PC worked well, Mozilla on the PC not at all (which was what I was using during the hunt unfortunately) and Mozilla on Linux worked a bit.

There was basically zero hinting till the very end (when it didn't matter for determining the winner) which is great, as it means the puzzles are solvable without it, and hinting really messes up hunts in a big way for all sorts of reasons.

There were so many good puzzles that I don't think I'm going to try to single out a few this time although if someone wants recommendations for particular knowledge/skill sets I would try to give them. Two more gaming friends came this year and made contributions, although each of them could only make it for part of the hunt.

My only real regrets are missing the endgame as I didn't sleep till too late, as I misjudged how long the hunt would go, and missing the wrap-up meeting as it was in the morning and not posted to the website, which must have been an oversight.

January 06, 2005

Update

Just writing an entry mostly as I haven't in a while. Had a great trip to visit my brother and his family in New Mexico for Christmas and New Years although unfortunately came down with the flu and am still recovering from it. World of Warcraft continues to eat up an incredible amount of time, amazingly addictive and very fun. I now have two characters, as I created a second to play with my brother, who is now also addicted. I at some point may have to really fight against this addiction but it has been especially nice to play while sick and not up for much else.

Highlights of the trip were playing with my 4 year old nephew and a couple really fun Go-Kart rides at a park in Tucson, Arizona we went to. I was quite amazed at just how much fun these were and tiring too on the arms. I may try to find a good track around Boston and arrange an outing.

Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house
was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, "a perfect house, whether you like food or
sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a
pleasant mixture of them all." Merely to be there was a cure for weariness,
fear and sadness.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Dr. Strauss says I should rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing
that happins to me from now on..

Daniel Keys, opening line of Flowers for Algernon

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to
know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my
parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David
Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to
know the truth.

J.D. Salinger, opening line of The Catcher in the Rye

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not
follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Albert Camus

"Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible, and now I
must hold out for what I thought we had. I want to be very close to someone I
respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me. That or
nothing. I realized that what I'm looking for is not what you're looking for.
You don't want what I want."
"What do you think I want?" I asked.
"Exactly what you have. Many women you know a little and don't care very much
about. Superficial flirtations, mutual use, no chance of love. That's my idea
of hell. Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, Richard, in which there is
no love. Horrible! Leave me out of it."

Richard Bach, Spoken by Leslie Parrish and Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever

I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be
something to someone.

Katherine Kurtz, spoken by Javan

...that was the first thing I had to learn about her, and maybe the hardest
I've ever learned about anything--that she is her own, and what she gives
me is of her choosing, and the more precious because of it. Sometimes
a butterfly will come to sit in your open palm, but if you close your
hand, one way or the other, it--and its choice to be there--are gone.

Barbara Hambly, Spoken by John Aversin, Dragonsbane

And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet
would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind
at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.

Ursula K. LeGuin, The Tombs of Atuan

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do especially in
other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there
and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on
the road.

William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do
it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and
change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last
time something like that happened in politics or religion.

Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as
one wishes to live.

Oscar Wilde

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's
on.

Joseph Heller, Catch22

My close relationship with Alice Waters illustrates the kind of client
with whom I get along best. We have a clear aesthetic, are dedicated to our
work, and leave each other to do the best we can for each other. I cannot
imagine a finer relationship.

David Lance Goines, Graphic Designer

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that
truly makes living worth while?"
Death thought about it "Cats," he said eventually, "Cats are Nice."

Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that
goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

Albert Einstein

One man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage
to reach the unreachable stars;
and the world will be better for this.

Mitch Leigh, The Quest, based on Cervantes

That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how
we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from
it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious
way, is winning.

Richard Bach, note written by Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever

The main problem with today's high-technology society is that we allow
politicians to run it instead of people equipped with the wherewithal to
understand it. Their mentalities are still in the nineteenth century. How can
they hope to manage complex economies when they're not competent to run a
yard-sale. What can they do that requires even a smattering of knowledge or
intellect?
People let them get away with it. If people are gonna elect turkeys to tell
them what to do, then the people are gonna have problems. You can't blame the
turkeys. The Constitution never guaranteed smart government; it guaranteed
representative government. And it works - that's what we've got.
The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to
get elected, and nothing else... which requires only an ability to fool a
sufficient number of people for just long enough to get the votes.
Unfortunately the personal qualities necessary for attaining office are
practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. A test that
you can pass only by cheating can't possibly select honest people, can it?

James P. Hogan, Code of the Lifemaker

Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for
three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't
have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it's
true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to
be dumb and lazy.

Warren Buffet

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes
when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well
-- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There. There," said the marquis de Carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder.
And he added, for good measure, "There." He did not comfort well.

Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in
anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in
anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not
believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with
reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it
and live up to it.

Buddha

The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Vorlon Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5: Believers

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood
from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually
record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise
children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of
civilization is what happened on the banks.

Will Durant, The History of Civilization

You cannot rule the world El-ahrairah, for I will not have it so. All the
world will be your enemy, Prince With a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they
catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you--digger,
listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of
tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.